A friend of mine is in the same situation I was in nearly 15 months ago.

J was officially matched with a birth mom (due to give birth to a baby girl in August) on August 3rd.

This morning Baby Girl was born. J met the beautiful baby girl around 3am this morning. She loved on her and held her until leaving to go home and get some rest and to give A (birth mom) some time with Baby Girl.

Later today J received a call from the pregnancy counselor saying that A is having a very hard time with her decision. A isn’t sure if she wants to go through with her adoption plan for her baby or if she wants to parent. A does not want J at the hospital at this time. J will receive a call on Friday from the pregnancy counselor telling her to come pick up her daughter or the counselor will say that A has decided to parent.

My heart sunk when I read her blog.

Such an agonizing place to be. Not knowing just about drove me crazy and the only peace I had was knowing people were praying for me during those agonizing hours of waiting.

Please pray for J’s heart tonight and tomorrow as she waits. Pray for peace. Pray for A as she is also in a very agonizing situation. This part of the adoption process is never easy for anyone.

Birth mom is processing emotions in choosing to give her child up to someone else to raise while adoptive parents sit on pins and needles, hopeful that the pain of waiting to become parents is soon going to be over, and yet guarded knowing that baby isn’t theirs until the birth parents terminate their rights.

I am praying for J tonight believing that God will complete the work He has started. J’s adoption journey is amazing – a miracle, just like every adoption story. God has a way of timing things so perfectly and bringing birth parents and adoptive parents together in such a way that it is so obvious that His hand was on the situation long before anyone was aware of the miracle unfolding.

J’s heart was opened to adoption in November of 2009. J turned in her adoption application on November 10th – exactly 9 months before A went into labor!

Let’s lift J and A up to the Father tonight and pray peace upon all in whatever decision is made over the next two days.

I’ve read several blogs that have addressed this issue recently and I thought I’d write my own thoughts concerning this matter.

Adoptive moms carry alot of guilt when complaining about something related to motherhood. (Not ALL adoptive moms, but I’ve learned this is very common among many adoptive mothers.)

It is true for me.

Because I spent a lifetime yearning to be a mother and then had to endure infertility, I feel I can’t complain about the hardships of motherhood for fear that someone will find me “ungrateful” for the miracle God blessed me with.

After all, I chose to adopt. I didn’t just find myself pregnant one day and then say, “Oh, well, I’m going to be a mom.”

No, it took years of pain and heartache and deciding to adopt to become a mother.

I distinctly remember the lawyer’s words on that April 9th, 2009, day:

You can have a baby girl in June if you want.

We could have said “No” but we said “Yes” and 48 days later I became a mother.

There was most certainly a “honeymoon” period. The day Tracy signed the papers and Little Bug was officially ours and then the week after Little Bug’s birth that she spent in the NICU were certainly perfect days. (Besides the fact that we were dealing with withdrawals.) I felt on top of the world. I felt I had just come out of a very dark time of my life and couldn’t stop praising God for the miracle He had performed in giving us a daughter through the miracle of adoption.

Then, we came home from the hospital and real life began. Reality set in and unfortunately, my expectations and reality were light years apart.

Over the past year, that huge gap between expectations and reality has closed considerably, but it is something I still struggle with to this very day!

So, we got Little Bug home and the “honeymoon” continued while family and friends poured in coming to meet our little miracle.

Then reality hit and it hit hard.

People tell you before you have a baby that life will change and so I was aware that my life would change. I just had no clue that every single aspect of my life was going to change.

I had no clue that brushing my teeth and getting dressed in the morning in peace was a thing of the past.

I had no clue my quality of sleep would decline drastically and a year later I would still long for those baby-free nights of sleep.

Yes, I said that. You read correctly. Even the girl who longed for a baby all her life and went through infertility for 2 years has longed to go back to those peaceful nights of sleep when you are not constantly worried about the baby sleeping through the night.

Some might judge an adoptive mom for saying that. After all, she wanted that baby right? She wanted that baby more than her next breath.

A woman who conceived naturally, whether trying or not, wouldn’t be looked down upon if she said in frustration one night, “What I wouldn’t give for just one night of peaceful sleep without worrying about the baby!”

Adoptive moms think like that too. We just are hesitant to say it because we are fearful of being judged for not being found grateful for the child we prayed for and waited for and chose.

But the reality is biological mother and adoptive mothers are the same. We are both mothers. And mothers have a very hard job!! And if any mother is honest with herself, we’ve all been at the point of complete frustration … no matter how we became mothers!

I have such a hard time letting things go. I want to be a perfect mother but instead I’ve been bombarded with numerous emotions I never saw coming.

I believe these emotions would have come whether we had adopted or had a biological child because the transition into motherhood has been the most challenging thing in my life thus far. Yes, even more so than the challenge of infertility.

Infertility was a season of my life. Motherhood defines who I am.

All I’ve ever wanted to be is a wife and mother and here I am and life isn’t perfect!

Imagine that!

Interesting how motherhood has shown me areas in my life that need improvement.

Mothering takes sacrifice. And sacrifice hurts.

But sacrifice is necessary and when it comes down to it, mothers will do anything for their babies.

One of the hardest adjustments I’ve had to make as a mother is in the sleep department. I’ve always required a lot of sleep. When I was in Kindergarten I would come home from school and lay down on the couch and take a nap! Not to many 5 year olds take a nap every single day.

I’m a night owl. I love staying up late and sleeping late the next morning. Try telling that to a 1 year old.

“Ok, Little Bug, let’s stay up till midnight and sleep till 10am tomorrow morning!”

YEAH RIGHT!

Mix my need for a lot of sleep to function properly and my night-owledness and that’s a recipe for sacrifice when you become a mother.

I don’t like going to bed early and I don’t like getting up at 7 or 7:30am. I had recently gotten Little Bug to sleeping until 8am or 8:30 (heavenly!!) but she’s been getting up at 7am lately and it frustrates me to no end!!

Sacrifice with a lot of hope that one day Little Bug will like sleeping later like her Mama!!

Bringing home that little 5 pound baby girl I had all these expectations of what I was going to teach her.

I had absolutely no idea just how much this little girl was going to teach me.

I know her lessons will continue for years to come.

Although I consider my infertility days behind me, I am still an infertile and always will be. While I am not childless and am not going through infertility treatments at the moment (or ever again, for that matter!), infertility is always something that will go with me wherever I go in life.

And perhaps there will always be situations where I will ask God, “Why her and not me?” Like just yesterday when Dave, Little Bug and I were out for a walk in the neighborhood.

We live in a quiet neighborhood. The only noise comes from the house in the far corner. We call that the “Party House”. The garage of “Party House” has been made into a pool hall/TV room complete with a huge big screen TV, beer refrigerator, surround sound (You know, so the whole entire neighborhood can hear the game that is on. Thanks!?) and comfy couches.

The owner of this house lives there with his live-in girlfriend who we refer to as “The Harlot”. Harlot has this little dog whom she allows to roam the neighborhood and dig up people’s freshly planted flowers. (I know, because this dog came into our yard not half an hour after I had planted beautiful lilies in the front flower bed. I had gone inside and was sitting in the office which has a window that looks out into this flower bed and the front yard. And what did I see? Yes, that pesky little dog was in the flower bed digging up ALL the flowers I had just planted.)

A few months ago Harlot and her dog no longer seemed to be at the “Party House”. We figured they had broken up. But then, over the past couple of weeks or so, we noticed they were back.

Well, on our walk yesterday we think we figured out what just might have happened…

As we were walking down the street from our house towards the “Party House” we noticed this woman walking down the street. I noticed her rounding belly right away and turned to Dave and said, “Is that the Harlot?” He said, “I think so.” We smiled and waved as we walked by her and then after we passed her I turned to Dave again and asked, “Is she pregnant???”

She is most definitely about 4 or 5 months pregnant.

We walked a little further and then said, “Hmm. Guess that’s why she disappeared for a while. Guess they worked things out after the shock of a baby on the way.”

Why her?

Here is where I have to make the choice I talked about in one of my Q&A posts.

I can choose to continue asking why and focus on the unfairness of an unmarried couple not desiring to conceive be able to conceive by having sex, like normal people do.

Or I can look at the big picture here.

Sure it would be nice to be able to decide that I want to have a baby and try a couple months and then actually be pregnant minus all the heartache and disappointment that comes along with infertility.

It would be nice to know another huge chunk of money does not stand between us and our second child. It would be nice to know that around the time Little Bug turned two, we could start trying for #2 and he or she would arrive around Little Bug’s 3rd birthday.

That would all be nice. But it is just not the path God has called us too.

Instead, He has called us to live in surrender to our own desires for His. And He has required us to completely put our faith and trust in Him when we even consider thinking about adding to our family one day. I think God draws people to Himself by requiring this kind of surrender and trust in a certain area of life – for us, it is our fertility and the lack of it.

For when we are weak, it is then that we are strong in Him.

Would I choose to be fertile now?

No.

As much as I hate my infertility, I love it because through my weaknesses God has taken it all and created something beautiful.

He showed me what it really means to walk by faith daily. To really put your complete trust in Him because you literally had no other options. That is a very humbling, scary and exciting place to be – all at the same time.

It is something to know God is taking the ugly circumstances of your life and is making a beautiful masterpiece for the world to see.

God did that. He took my infertility and performed The Miracle of Little Bug while the world looked on (via this blog).

As time moves forward I know one day I’ll be back at square one. I’ll be longing for another child and wondering how in the world it will happen, given the circumstances.

But then I’ll put my faith in the Lord and trust Him once again for another miracle.

Infertility goes with me every step of the way from here on out, but so does the awesome power of my God.

Mothers just know instinctively when there is something wrong with their baby.

My first experience with this (and at the time I had no clue that my motherly instincts had already kicked in) was about a week and a half after we learned Little Bug would be joining our family.

It was April 20, 2009, to be exact. I was at work that day. (Remember, I used to nanny for precious twin little girls before Little Bug was born.) As I went about the day I just felt like something had happened. I had this uneasy feeling the entire day. Finally, I decided I had to call the lawyer and ask if anything had happened to Tracy.

I called and ended up leaving a message for the lawyer and then went back to trying to push away that uneasy feeling. But it wouldn’t go away. I just knew something was up.

As the girls took there nap that day I sat on the couch and started praying for Little Bug. More than anything that day, I wanted Little Bug to be mine and to be safe in my arms. God began to teach me that very day that Little Bug isn’t mine at all – she is His.

I sat there with my notebook that I was using to journal my journey through the process of adopting and I drew a picture of a pregnant woman in the Hands of God. Here is the page from my journal where I drew this picture. Please, be forewarned, I am no artist!

I had to cover up that top right corner because I wrote Little Bug’s real name there. It says: “God’s protective hand surrounding [Little Bug] now and forevermore!”

That situation taught me a very important lesson every mother needs to learn: I can only protect Little Bug so much. My protection is limited. Ultimately, her life is in the Hands of our Heavenly Father and I can trust Him to protect Little Bug.

By the way, my motherly instincts were correct. A situation had transpired over the weekend involving Little Bug and Tracy. When I finally spoke to the lawyer and explained I just felt something had happened and she was probably going to think I was a nutcase for calling, she said, “Well…. actually….” and then went on to tell me what had gone on. (Details of which I just cannot share on a public website!)

A mother automatically feels a bond and connection with the unborn child in her womb. It is interesting to me that I felt a bond and connection to Little Bug even before her birth though I had never felt her kick me from the womb. Physically, we were as far apart as the Statue of Liberty is to the Golden Gate Bridge. There was no physical connection whatsoever. However, my motherly instincts had already kicked in for a baby girl that was growing in another woman’s womb.

Don’t ever underestimate the love and bond there is between mother and adopted child. And even more astounding is this: I think about how much I love my Little Bug and desire to protect her and I know God loves and protects Little Bug infinitely more.

When walking the road of infertility you often just want to know when is all this pain, heartache and disappointment just going to end and why do I have to go through all this?

I received the answer to both of those questions one year ago today … April 9th, 2009.

I knew in my heart all along that God did have a magnificent plan in all our struggles with infertility. I was just waiting for the day for God to reveal that plan to us.

One year ago today I went to the adoption agency to turn in our paperwork and heard these incredible words: “We had an adoption fall through last week, if you want a baby in June you can have one!”

After a whirlwind of transitioning from an infertility treatments mindset to a I-am-going-to-FINALLY-be-a-Mommy-in-TWO-months mindset, Little Bug was born 48 days after I walked into the adoption agency.

I knew I was witnessing a miracle that God had orchestrated from the very beginning of my infertility journey. He knew this was the direction we were headed. I had no clue adoption was in our future as we first started trying to conceive in August 2007. I could only trust God to lead and direct my path.

And He most certainly did. God orchestrated the events that brought us Little Bug as only HE could do.

All the pain, tears and monthly disappointments were because God’s Plan wasn’t a biological child for us. He had Something More planned.

He orchestrated The Miracle of Little Bug and one year from that April day I continue to stand in amazement of His faithfulness.

God is forever faithful.

Maybe because Little Bug is almost a year old and is looking more and more like a little girl instead of a little baby with every passing month, I’ve been thinking about the day Little Bug learns she is adopted.

In a post I wrote before Little Bug was born, I said that we plan to tell Little Bug about her adoption as soon as she starts asking questions.

I’ve always imagined the questions would come when Little Bug sees the belly of a pregnant woman and asks me if she used to be in my tummy.

I’m not so concerned about answering her preschooler questions. It’s when she is a teenager and wants to know details that concerns me.

It’s not that I don’t want her knowing the details surrounding her adoption; the details concerning the woman who gave her life.

I just hope Little Bug is able to see her adoption for the miracle that is was (and is), like everyone who hears her story sees it.

I hope she can truly understand one day why Tracy could not parent her and how the mercy and grace of God landed her in our home, in our family.

I hope she fully comprehends the miracle that took place in her mother’s heart. How her mother grew up dreaming of four beautiful children born to her through the miracle of pregnancy and childbirth and how God changed her heart to be able to welcome her as her daughter.

I hope Little Bug knows she is the daughter I desired all those years of waiting for her to arrive. I hope Little Bug believes with all her heart, as her mother and father do, that blood relations so do not matter when it comes to a parent/child relationship.

There is no other little girl on this universe that I would want to call daughter except Little Bug.

I hope Little Bug one day fully comprehends that she is a miracle, in more way than one.

I came across this TV show called “16 and Pregnant”. The girl got pregnant during her senior year of high school. She and her boyfriend had broken up after she found out she was pregnant. However, they were talking again so they could figure out what they were going to do about the baby.

For me, it is hard to imagine a pregnancy being an unwanted thing in anyone’s life. But, under the right circumstances, pregnancies all the time are unwanted.

This girl definitely fell into that category. There is something to say about any woman who chooses life for their unwanted pregnancy over the “quick-fix” of having an abortion.

The girl on this show knew abortion wasn’t an option for her in the least bit. Tracy knew that wasn’t an option for her either.

The girl’s parents wanted her to pursue adoption from the start. The girl wasn’t so sure that was what she wanted. She was leaning more towards parenting. And so was her x-boyfriend. The parents knew the two of them were not living in reality. They were making plans for them and this baby that in reality just were not going to be what they were thinking it would be.

Their plan was the girl would move in with her x-boyfriend and his roommate and the four of them would live together. Of course, the girl’s parents knew when you compare this situation with adoption, adoption was the best thing for the parents and baby, hands down. So, in their wisdom, they suggested their daughter go live with her x-boyfriend for a week before the baby was born to see if that would work once the baby got here.

The girl gets to her x-boyfriend’s apartment and it didn’t take long for her to realize in real-life their plan to parent this baby just wasn’t going to work in reality.

The girl, feeling stuck and not knowing what to do next, begins to think about adoption. The scenes where she was sitting on her bed talking to her parents about adoption were heartbreaking. She clearly wanted this baby, but she knew, given the circumstances, she was not at a place to parent a child.

The show later shows her very at peace about her choice to choose adoption for her baby. She had gone to an agency and looked through some profiles picking one couple who she felt could best parent her son.

It was very eye-opening to me to see her struggle in choosing adoption and the heartache that came with making that decision. She knew this was the best choice and once she met the couple she had chosen, her decision to choose adoption seemed even more right to her.

Then came the time for her to give birth and to actually relinquish the child to the adoptive parents. They had an “Adoption Ceremony” at the hospital where the girl walked in holding the baby, walked to the adoptive parents and handed over the baby boy to his mother.

It was beautiful. A beautiful picture of what adoption really is … two families coming together forever, through the miracle of adoption.

While a completely open adoption, one in which Tracy would have visits with us on a regular basis, is just not the best thing considering the circumstances, I do hope to be able to contact Tracy through the adoption agency at any given date should Little Bug ever desire to meet Tracy.

I never want to be “hush-hush” about Tracy with Little Bug. She gave Little Bug life and she chose us to parent Little Bug, of which I am forever grateful.

I know my curious Little Bug is one day going to be curious about all this. It is my prayer that as her mother, I will have the wisdom necessary to guide her and help her understand the circumstances, the miracle, that brought her into our family.

I’m thinking sending her to her Mama’s blog and letting her read from the beginning might just be the perfect start to her comprehending the miracle that she is.

This week I’ve been remembering where I was a year ago around this time …

The end of March 2009 will always be remembered as the low of the low before the high of the high.

I was coming to terms with the fact I’d most likely never have a biological child and my mom and I were working everyday on getting our Family Profile put together to turn into the adoption agency.

Now that I am not living those days between March 8th, 2009, when I found out I would most likely never conceive, to April 9th, 2009, when I turned in our adoption paperwork and was told we could have a baby in two months, I love to think about those 32 days.

I especially like to think about the spiritual aspect of those days.

I had been walking the hardest road to date of my life for the past year and a half. I had had to make choices along the way of whether I was going to be mad, and stay mad at God, or if I was going to trust His words in Scripture and believe with all my heart that He did have a plan for my life in all this and it was a plan that was better than anything I imagine.

I chose to believe in the marvelous plan God had for my life.

It was so hard to wait. I lived knowing God had a plan for my life concerning becoming a mother but having absolutely no clue whatsoever what that plan might be.

I can remember thinking many times, “If only God would just give me a little hint and tell me,  ‘By this date, you’ll be a mom.’”

That is just not the way God works – thank goodness.

Had God told me, “Ok, Elaine. It’s April 9th, 2009. That is the date things will turn around for you. It is on that day you will go to the adoption agency and the lawyer will tell you you and Dave can have a baby by June. There. Do you feel better now?”, I would have missed out on so much.

I would have missed out on developing a trust in God that was truly a trust in God to take care of every little detail of my life. I reached the point where I knew things were totally out of my control and I was at the mercy of God to play out His plan for my life.

April 8th, 2009, I was still waiting. Still waiting for God to come through and reveal this plan that was better than anything I could imagine.

April 9th, 2009, God knew the time had come. I woke up that morning like I did every morning. I had no clue a miracle was about to happen before my very eyes.

I like to imagine God on this day being so excited that this day had finally come. He knew what was about to happen as I walked into that lawyer’s office. He had been planning every small detail.

September 2009, He created a life in a woman named Tracy. In September 2009, God chose to not create life in my womb during one of my IUI cycles.

In December 2009, God lead Tracy to the adoption agency because Tracy knew she could not parent this child for multiple reasons. In December 2009, God opened our hearts to adoption.

On April 9th, 2009, God lead me to the same adoption agency that Tracy had contacted back in December. I was told that day there was a baby available for adoption in June. Over the next couple of days, Tracy saw our profile and met us and chose us to parent her baby girl.

It was 10 months ago today that Tracy signed her papers making Little Bug our little girl forever.

Words are inadequate to describe the emotion of that day, but a picture might do it some justice:

Over the past 7 weeks we had been eyewitnesses to a miracle that God had performed.

Those days were surreal.

And just like God had promised in his Word, His Plan was better than anything we could have imagined.

His Plan was Little Bug.

Again, words are inadequate to describe our love for this little girl.

A year ago, I dreamed of a one day being a mommy to a precious little girl.

And now, I cannot imagine being a mommy to any other little girl on this earth other than my Little Bug.

Around the time of Little Bug’s birth, I imagined Little Bug hitting the 6 month mark and us getting word to the adoption agency that we are ready for them to start matching us with another birth mom.

Little Bug is 6 months old and I am so not ready to even begin thinking about that process again!

It’s not because I am totally overwhelmed with motherhood. The opposite is true … I absolutely LOVE where my life is right now and I cannot imagine anything better than being a stay-at-home-mom to Little Bug.

She is everything I dreamed having a child would be … and more. And at this point, I just cannot imagine parenting any other child in the world besides her!

This comes as a complete surprise to me as I have always desired to have four children.

I know one day I’ll get that baby-itch again but right now, that is the last thing on my mind!

And, truth be told, emotionally, I am just not ready to embark on the ups and downs of another adoption. It’s a wild ride and considering the fact that my life, for the past two years, has been a wild ride, I am just ready to live a normal life for a while, leaving adventure out of the equation for a while!

I know one day I (we) will be ready to add another member to our family and I definitely want Little Bug to be a big sister!

When that day comes I will stand strong in the Lord and watch His mighty plan unfold yet again.

When we first set out to have a baby, my heart was not softened to the fact that my plans may not be God’s Plan.

I know that when we set out to add a second child to our family, my heart will go at it in surrender to God’s perfect plan from the start.

Even now, I know God has another miracle awaiting. And just like He did with Little Bug, He will perfectly orchestrate every last detail of that child joining our family.

All I have to do is wait in obedience to Him and listen for Him to tell me it’s time.

And in the meantime, savor every day with my precious Little Bug.

I was recently asked a tough question by an anonymous reader of my blog:

How does your heart release that desire to have a biological child you have carried in your womb?

The desire to experience pregnancy and childbirth has been with me since I was a little girl. I played with baby dolls probably well past the appropriate time to pack the baby dolls away in the attic. I can remember constantly stuffing a ball or anything that would make me look “pregnant” up my shirt as I played.

I spent many nights dreaming of the day I would learn that new life was growing in my womb. I imagined what it would be like to give birth with my husband by my side.

I can remember daydreaming in my bedroom as a girl about my future babies. I wanted to give birth to four children two to three years apart. I wanted to have two girls and two boys.

When Dave and I married, having a baby was top on our priority list. When we first started trying to conceive, I could not wait to know that a human being that was half me and half the man I loved was growing in my body. Having always marveled at the miracle of pregnancy, I knew giving birth to a baby would be the most incredible experience of my life.

And then all my hopes and dreams of pregnancy and childbirth met infertility and I learned from a medical viewpoint my body was incapable of achieving pregnancy.

I have often wondered why God would put the desire for pregnancy into every fiber of my being just to not ever allow me to experience the miracle of pregnancy.

March 8, 2009, was the day I realized my dream of pregnancy wasn’t going to happen.

I can only describe that day as a death of a lifelong dream. There was a time of mourning.

I had to mourn never seeing two pink lines on a pregnancy test.

I had to mourn not being able to tell family and friends we are pregnant.

I had to mourn never being able to feel life growing in my womb.

I had to mourn my husband never putting his hand on my belly to feel his baby kick.

I had to mourn I’d never parent a child that was half me and half Dave.

And then, I had to move forward.

With a strength that can only come from the Lord, I had to pick up the pieces of my broken heart and determine to put my faith and hope in the Lord.

I had to believe that God had plans for my life that would prosper me and bring me hope and a future. I had to believe in the character of God – that He is good, that He is faithful, that He is loving and that somewhere in the muck of this dream’s death was something more that God had planned that was far bigger and far better than my heart’s desire.

I had to believe that if God’s plan for me was not to experience pregnancy, He had some other miracle awaiting me.

On May 27, 2009, my daughter was born. I never felt her kick inside my body and she is not half me and half Dave. I did not give birth to her.

And I wouldn’t change a thing. Not one single thing.

God’s Plan is perfect, leaving no room for error.

As for my desire for pregnancy?

I’d be lying if I said it was gone. But instead of a raging flaming fire it is just a very tiny flame that resides in the pit of my heart.

Acceptance has dulled the flame over time.

I could drive myself batty if I was still earnestly seeking pregnancy when God was saying no.

I don’t know if there will ever be a day where I won’t look at a pregnant belly and think about what I never got to experience.

But this I know. Until the day I die I will look at my Little Bug and know she is the miracle God had planned for me.

Little Bug was God’s Plan for my life even back in the days I would pretend I was “pregnant” with my baby dolls.

I am forever grateful that God (and Josh and Angele!) allowed me the privilege of being right there for the entire labor and delivery process of Lilianna. Standing on the sidelines witnessing Lilianna’s birth was the closure my heart was seeking.

Peace also comes knowing God is not limited by infertility. If He wills a pregnancy for me in the future nothing will stand in His way. But at the same time, if I die never having experienced pregnancy, all is well with my soul.

I have never experienced the miracle of pregnancy but I have experienced the miracle of Little Bug.

My heart is content and my cup overflows with the goodness and faithfulness of my Savior.

I am lacking nothing.

I am learning this more and more everyday.

Before Little Bug, I couldn’t imagine parenting a child that was not biologically related to me and my husband.

I can remember having a conversation with a friend a long time ago that went something like this:

Friend: “I think adoption is a beautiful thing but I don’t feel God leading us to adopt.”

Me: “Yeah, me neither. I definitely want to be pregnant and give birth to my babies.”

Ha! Now, I seriously just laugh at that statement that came out of my very mouth not too long ago!

I thank God that even though I would love to one day experience the miracle of pregnancy, I am forever grateful that He has allowed me to experience the miracle of adoption.

Adoption certainly does not take away ones desire for pregnancy and childbirth, but I can say, at least for me, that adoption has certainly lessened the blow of the very likely possibility of never conceiving and being pregnant.

And when it comes right down to it, what I really desire is to be a mother and that is achieved through either pregnancy or adoption!

Whether I carried Little Bug in my womb for nine months or if she enters our life through adoption, the end result is the same …

I am her mother and she is my daughter!